Nintendo considered Fire Emblem and Pokemon crossover before moving on to Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE certainly had an interesting development cycle. At one point, it was considered for 3DS. The team also thought about various genres. But in the end, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE was made for Wii U as a mostly unique RPG that borrows some elements from Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei.

Going back well before development started, the game’s origins also have some ties to Pokemon, strangely enough. Nintendo director Hitoshi Yamagami revealed in a Nintendo Dream companion booklet at the end of last year that the company’s Kaori Ando “proposed a plan” that would have featured Pokemon and Fire Emblem. However, since a different proposal was floating around at the same time which would eventually become Pokemon Conquest, the idea was abandoned.

Here’s what Yamagami and Ando had to say about the situation, as translated by kantopia:

Please tell us what led up to the planning of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE.

Yamagami (Nintendo Producer): 5 years ago, Ms. Ando proposed a plan [for a crossover], saying “You know, I think FE and Pokemon‘s rules are pretty compatible!” Though I agreed with her, by chance the Pokemon group had already proposed what eventually became Pokemon Conquest at the same time [so we were unable to follow through].

Ando (Nintendo Director): Yes, which I was in charge of too.

Yamagami (Nintendo Producer): As the plan was a secret, she was put in charge of that first. (Laughs). And then, it took her less than a week to say, “Here’s the next plan.” The new plan was a collaboration with Atlus. At that time, new games like Xenoblade and Pandora’s Tower were coming out, and, because I myself was quite interested in Atlus’s games, I figured “This could work!” At first, we made informal plans within our own small group, but…

Takata (Atlus Producer): At that time, the organization itself was undergoing changes. and it was almost impossible to deal with Atlus as a second party, and so we almost decided to give up on it. After roughly 2 years, we heard from Hiraoka (board member at Atlus), “Let’s try to collaborate and level up by making an RPG together.” After that, we attempted to contact Nintendo repeatedly, asking “Do you want to bring that RPG to life [with us]?”

Yamagami (Nintendo Producer): We replied immediately with, “Let’s do it!” We then quickly began to draft plans for the game, still only having a rough idea of what it would be. And so, we released an image that showed, “Shin Megami Tensei Meets Fire Emblem” to the public.